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Talking to Euro press at a roundtable Cisco CEO John Chambers said (in somewhat broken English) Linksys was 'end of life' and the networking giant would soon pull its products under the larger Cisco tag.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/networ...nksys-Brand/p1
About time, It's going to be confusing though as currenty if someone says Linksys you kinda think home router or low end SME type stuff, if they say Cisco then you start thinking IOS grade equipment...
Wonder what's behind that. It's not like Linksys isn't a hugely known name, and a successful one.
Hi folks,
I guess that it is simple corporate economics (if not politics). I worked for an outfit many years ago that had two major brand names in the power tools market, and decided to merge them.
It costs a bit to get the idea across to the market in the first instance but after that it is way cheaper and more effective to just promote the one brand name and corporate image.
Naturally they have decided to go with the more expensive and (perceived) higher quality brand name.
I guess we will still see most of the old Linksys products with the Cisco badge?
I think they kept it as the average home user is probably more familiar with the brand Linksys than they are with Cisco, but now they have took Linksys into the corporate market there is probably no need to keep the brand as the opposite is true - Cisco is more known that Linksys in the cooperate market...
I would say that's a certainty. My dad and cousin are familiar with Linksys, as are most of the users on our general PC troubleshooting forum, but I bet you none of them's heard of Cisco.
That is really strange to me... AFAIK Linksys is the most popular brand of routers out there. I think just keeping the name would beinift cisco monitarily at least..
That's what I would think too. Doesn't make sense. You spend years and tons of cash to make a brand name universally known, then you ditch it? Sounds like a graduate of the Keystone Cops school of business.
Hi Guys,
Please let me explain from my experience in a slightly different electronics field.
We had two major brand names in the professional tools field. One for drilling hammers (electro pneumatic), transformers and generators, and the other for professional power tools such as hand drills, hammer drills, circular saws, jigsaws, orbital sanders, belt sanders and so on.
You could not buy these down your local DIY store............. these were professional tools.
OK, after many years of belonging to the same holding company, the idea gets through that we are really selling into different segments of the same overall market.
Using the cross leverage of the brand names we embarked on a consolidation plan under the one name, and took that of the manufacturer of the larger equipment. Like the stuff you would hire or lease?
That is what Cisco are doing, but they will embark on a campaign to make the public aware of Cisco being the industrial strength "big brother" of Linksys. That will impress home/small users as they will see the big boys using Cisco kit.
You can then start on a cost cutting and consolidation exercise ............. I bet someone in Cisco is a Sick Sigma black testicle or whatever they like to call themselves:D
EDIT:
Hey, been there, done that, and it worked seamlessly................ maybe they need a consultant with superglued English............. I only cost $20,000 per diem (plus expenses of course)............. minimum contract 18 months................... ?
I dont think that still makes sense though. A lot of home users have not heard of cisco so why would they be impressed with the logo? Personally it doesnt even phase me either because I doubt cisco has helped modify newer linksys products anyways.
You are right about the market segments no doubt. Linsys is for basic home users and Cisco is more advanced. I think if they pull the name and throw home cisco routers for $40 they will lose a lot of home users and gain a small ammount of people who think cisco makes a great product - their loses would HAVE to be greater then their profits. Short term at least..
Well, I'm sure a multi-billion pound company knows more about business than anyone here, so they must have a valid business case for doing so. :)
Nah I know better then a 180 billion dollar company. :-p
Me too :D
The marketing theory is really quite simple. It costs money to maintain separate brand names so you only do it for a sound commercial reason.
For example, where you are dealing with a totally different product:
Seiko make clocks and watches...............Epson make printers.............. they are actually the same company.
Again we have the situation where you are selling into a different price, quality and performance market like Dell and Alienware, Asus and Asrock, or Toyota and Lexus.
Cisco obviously consider Linksys to be a continuation of the same business not a real competitor or an "artificial competitor".
Artificial competition is common in canned foods, detergents and the like. There are many brands but very few manufacturers. General Motors would be another example, as it makes a number of competing brands.
The success or otherwise of the merger will depend on how skillfully it is marketed and how well market perception is manipulated. ;)
Hey it's been a long time ... how is it going?
Well, Cisco is moving to a new market now, they are moving into the SMB market. As all of you may know, Cisco is high end solution provider for Med-Market and big businesses. Having LinkSys products marked as Cisco would definitely help it to move easier into this market.
Cisco has launched its first SMB solution The Smart Business Communication System (SBCS). Adding LinkSys portfolio would easily make it more recognizable in the SMB segment, as a result targeting the market through commercials and Cisco partners would be easier. I think this is the right think to do, LinkSys in the end of the day a Cisco subsidiary. This is just my 2 cents.
And As Nokia said they know more than us, especially when talking marketing and sales.
Cheers
/Slightly at a tangent/
It will be interesting to see how they handle existing stocks?
At some point they will want to get the old Linksys product off the shelves and so I would expect these items to be "on sale" even if there is no technical difference.
It would not be reasonable to expect retailers to take the hit for the reduced margin so they will have to come up with an attractive compensation scheme?
Unless they go for a recall and rebadge approach.
When Cisco phases equipment out they normally bring the newer item in at a much scaled down price than it's counter-part.
Take the PIX & ASA firewalls for example - they are marketing the ASA as the 'next generation PIX' instead of the 'replacement for the PIX' - due to the amount of PIX's in circulation this makes good sense - however obviously they want people to start using ASA's and not PIX's, so they have brought ASA's in at around 25% - 35% below the market rates and for the last year or so the price of a PIX has gone up slightly. (If anyone is about to buy a firewall now is the time to get an ASA)
Obviously when making a procurement decision anyone in their right mind will opt for an ASA over a PIX (Newer, better and cheaper....)
I should imagine they will bring the Cisco home routers on to the market at a lower retail price than the Linksys equivalents - this way resellers can still sell the Linksys stuff for the normal price, and when their stock has gone the demand will be for the Cisco stuff instead....hence eventually Linksys will be gone forever...of course after a while the price of the new equipment shoots up :)